Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Majora's Mask 3D Collector's Guide

As usual I also got the Prima Collector's Edition guide for Majora's Mask 3D. This is the first one, which doesn't have the Hylia emblem on the front, but Majora's Mask instead:

The gilded pages are not sticky for the first time, which is nice. Pages also seem to be thinner than usual. It has the same number of pages as the guide for The Wind Waker HD, but it's a lot thinner. Also, the lettering on the book's spine is slightly crooked. I heard that several copies have the same issue, so this is a bigger production flaw. But it's only noticeable, if you put it beside the other guides in your bookshelf.

The extra also seems somewhat cheaper this time around. In the past we had cloth maps, poster maps and bookmarks. The A Link Between Worlds guide had this beautiful lithograph. This one... well, this one got stickers:

They remind me of a set of old Club Nintendo stickers I got for Ocarina of Time, which also went for some darker foes. I put a Redead on my graphical calculator for school and Poe sticker on my semi-transparent purple Nintendo 64, which both still looks awesome. So, it brings back some memories and I kind of like them, but those should have been in addition to some nice Termina cloth map, instead of being the main extra.

Content wise the guide is flawed as always. I really disagree on when they do certain sidequests. For example they wait with the Swamp Spider House until they get the Hookshot. Of course many players do the same, but you can actually beat the Swamp Spider House even before entering Woodfall Temple. You don't even need the bow! And the guide should guide you through things as early as possible and go for the intended solutions.

The guide is also lacking with the new content. It doesn't have a map of the new Zora labyrinth on the moon and the new Fishing Holes, but it does have a map for absolutely everything else. And there's only very little on fishing. They added a simple check list for the fish, which doesn't even seem all that accurate or helpful.

But as usual this is not about the content, but the collection value. I wonder, if they will release another Zelda Box in a couple of years. We already got two collector guides, which are not part of the first box: A Link Between Worlds and this one. Add Zelda U later this year and we will have three. Four, if they also use the Hyrule Warriors one and give it a new cover. So, calling it now that there will be a 2nd Zelda Box with the guides from A Link Between Worlds and later around 2017.